Longwalk route, France, 2007 – Paris to Bordeaux.

Paris to Bordeaux

I guess I was hooked… After arriving home from my three month ramble in 2005, I set about planning (along with dreaming, working, saving, studying, training) to stretch my legs again on the trails of Europe. Before long, I focused on returning to France in 2007.

As it turned out, Autumn worked best with my schedule, so I headed off to “the Hexagon” in late September. From my earliest thoughts of walking in France, I was curious about departing from the very heart of Paris. And so I did…

I walked from the zero-point in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame south across the Beauce to Orleans and the Loire River valley, west through chateau country to Tours, and then south into the Aquitaine to Bordeaux. My muse, Eliza, likes to remind me that it took 42 days to walk from Paris to Bordeaux; but my return trip on the TGV high speed train took only 3 hours! “Keep that in mind, next time”, she tells me…